Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) provide a technology platform for the modelling and management of business processes and activities. An EIS typically models activities related to the operation of an enterprise, such as human resources, accounting, finance, plant management, sales and distribution, marketing, fleet management, warehouse management, and others. An EIS may model business processes via business objects that could represent tasks or activities of an enterprise, for example.
Extending an EIS is a time-consuming and resource-consuming process and runtime extensions are generally not available on an EIS. Because of the complexity associated with an EIS, extending an EIS involves modelling additional components for the system in a design time environment, testing such additional components, and deploying such additional components in the runtime of the EIS.
Some EIS offer static extension mechanisms that require the generation of extensions in a design time environment. Such extensions require development effort and additional resources such as time, human effort, and funds. Thus, such extensions cannot be provided on-demand.
Further, information pertaining to a business object in an EIS may be tightly coupled to the business object itself; and all changes to the business object may require to be performed in the same transaction with the business object, thus affecting the business object and all instances of the business object.
In hosted on-demand systems, it may be relevant to keep data in each instance of a business object separate from other instances of the business object because each business object instance may be relevant for different organizations sharing the use of the hosted system.